Electronic components, such as analog, digital, and mixed-signal components, generally receive input signals and/or provide output signals via one or more pins and/or terminals. For various reasons, it is often desired to test the operation of such components by providing known and/or controlled signals to and/or observing/measuring the output signals at the terminals. Various specialized testing systems or hardware, such as a digital and/or analog multimeters, oscilloscopes, analyzers, and the like, have been developed to enable such testing of electronic components.
However, such specialized testing systems have limitations and/or may not be ideally suited for application. For instance, such systems may be expensive, bulky, or otherwise not well situated for remote testing. Additionally, it may limit the lifetime of such expensive testing equipment to subject the equipment to harsh environments, such as radiation environments.
Furthermore, some of today's digital components may be operated at speeds greatly exceeding several GHz. When testing the operation of some components, it is often desirable to operate the components nears speeds of actual usage. The testing equipment may provide and receive such signals over a signal transmission medium. One popular signal transmission medium for such testing equipment may include electrically conducting wires. Various aspects of the signal transmission medium to carry such high-speed signals may be greatly constrained due to at least the non-instantaneous travel time and other aspects relating to the physics of signal transmission. Such constrained aspects of the transmission medium include but are not limited to total signal travel length, impedance, resistance, and other signal attenuating aspects. It is for these and other concerns that the following disclosure is provided.